Shreveport District Map Debate Fueling Ellerbe Park Secession?

Growing pains are a natural by-product of either natural growth, or growing too fast.  But Shreveport seems to be experiencing 'shrinking pains'.  And a perfect example of this is the recent debate over the new city district maps.  The latest incarnation, 9B, creates 5 black districts and 2 white districts. The city of Shreveport demographics basically breakdown to a 60-40 split black majority.  So a 5-2 black to white ratio council doesn't adequately represent both sides fairly.

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If you look at the Facebook page for Ellerbe Park in southeast Shreveport, they have been attempting to de-annex from the city of Shreveport since 2020.  Unhappy with the direction the city has been taking with the current administration, residents of Ellerbe Park no longer wish to be part of the City of Shreveport.  Community leader John Lorick recently told KEEL News he's even been contacted by several members of the community from other areas of town and neighborhood organizations, including Spring Lake, South Highlands and Broadmoor, asking how they could also become involved in the movement. Referring to the recent district map vote, Lorick said:

Things like this vote that just took place, just feeds the issue, the crime feeds the issue, the no-show mayor that we have, that has obviously been an epic failure, uh, doesn't have a clue what he's doing, thank goodness he'll be exiting in the fall... but... uh... all of those things feed the factors.... We're losing hundreds of families per year, and it's because of the ignorance of downtown and the lack of integrity, the lack of running the city as a business fashion- we have too many people in city hall, from the top down that are all about "what's in it for me?"

According to the website WorldPopulationReview, the population of Shreveport has been declining or basically steady since 1980, but began a much more rapid rate of decline in 2012.  Dropping from just over 202,000 in 2012, to 180,000 in 2022